


Late at Night

by coldfeet4



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Multi, OT3, Oneshot, Other, polyamorous!Bobbi Morse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 15:48:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4441823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldfeet4/pseuds/coldfeet4
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma Simmons just wanted to do some science before bed, but a giant mess and one Lance Hunter are making things a bit more difficult than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Late at Night

**Author's Note:**

> The ship no one asked for.

Jemma groaned in frustration, staring at the mess in the lab was left by the other scientist who she shared the space with. Fitz was gone for the night, decompressing with Mack and video games in the lounge, so she was alone against the cluttered tables, misplaced chemicals—she needed to organize a safety seminar for these people; working for a secret organization that allowed them to work with dangerous materials of questionable intent did not excuse reckless care-taking of their work space, if anything it demanded higher quality care from them all, honestly—and piles of paperwork set precariously close to edges, Jemma knew that her after hours project would have to happen after hours of _cleaning_.

If Bobbi weren’t already in bed, Jemma would drag her into the lab to keep her company while she worked but she wasn’t going to be rude. Bobbi was asleep, and she’d stay asleep. With Mack occupying Fitz, that left her with no one to spend time with while she worked.

“Lovely, this is exactly how I wanted to spend my night!” She could already feel herself forgetting the running list of chemicals and supplies she’d need for her experiment.

“Really? Seems like a pretty shabby way to pass the time.” Jemma turned to see Hunter leaning on the door, smiling at her in that smug quasi-flirtatious way he does with everyone of the female gender. She laughed sarcastically, setting herself into the mood required to get through a chat with Hunter.

“Well, clearly, I have nothing better to do than clean up after grown adults like they're children. It certainly isn’t like I had a brilliant idea about a formula to speed up the healing process for our agents that I wanted to get down before I forgot. I’d much rather tidy up like I’m these fools nursemaid and not their superior officer.”

“What are you planning, now? You started saying science words, and I forgot to listen.” Hunter walked in slowly. Jemma would be annoyed, except his body language assured her that he’s only trying to rile her up.

“That was hardly science talk, Hunter. I said ‘formula’, that isn’t science. Plenty of things have formulas!” Jemma sighed, crossing her arms, “Anyways, I thought of a way to artificially produce and preserve enzymes that could help mildly with the healing process. It’d only be by a marginal amount, but over a long period it could really help with our agents recoveries, and perhaps reduce the amount of scaring they’d experience. But silly me! Of course the others left their days works strewn about the room like minor tornado blew through here. They probably think they can just clean it up tomorrow and have caused no complications for anyone else.” She turned, throwing her arms out to gesture to the open space, “But they are causing complications! To me! I just want to do some science before bed, Hunter. Is that so much to ask?”

“Whoa, slow down there, love.” Hunter was next to her now, giving her a mildly alarmed look, “Is it really something to get this upset over?”

“Everything is shit right now, Hunter.” She stomped her foot, glaring at him, “I don’t have Skye, I don’t have Fitz, Bobbi is busy, May and the Director of completely out of the question to distract with my stupid, irrelevant problems. My entire life feels like this stupid messy horrible lab right now. Under funded, over staffed, uncared for, left in shambles, and completely disconnected to the greater world of science because the world thinks S.H.I.E.L.D. is a terrorist organization even though we’ve done nothing but save their sorry asses. I’m so stressed out, I just want to be able to use my lab without having to deal with this first!” Jemma took a few deep breathes after her outburst, looking guilty and ashamed as Hunter stared at her in genuine alarm, hands out in front of him, “I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”

“Alright,” Hunter looked at a loss for words, dropping his hands to his sides and letting them swing for a few beats. With a sigh, he looked away from Jemma and ran a hand over his hair. Bobbi’s little science girlfriend was really upset here, and he wasn't exactly the best person to deal with these kinds of situations but he was too deep in now to just walk away. Besides, Hunter was pretty fond of Jemma and all her dorky science-y excitement. And if he was honest, he was also _pretty_ fond of the way she would literally jump onto Bobbi to kiss her sometimes. He might not be dating Jemma, but seeing Bobbi with another girl? Pretty hot.

“Alright,” Hunter repeated, still trying to think of something to do, “How about,” He stared around the lab, turning in a circle until he was facing Jemma again, “I help you tidy up some. Then you can do your experiment and relax some.” Jemma sighed, dropping his eye contact.

“No, it’s fine. It’s not your problem to deal with, and I already forgot a lot of what I was thinking anyways.” She looked and sounded like she was about to cry.

“Oh no,” Hunter whispered—he had no fucking clue what to do about crying. At least, not a lot of _good_ ideas. Jemma heard him whisper and blushed, knowing what he was thinking and only feeling worse from burdening him with her issues. “I mean, oh no you don’t. I won’t take no for an answer here, love. You clearly need to do some work to get yourself settled and un-" He gestured to her in general, "I’m sure you haven’t really forgotten whatever it was you were talking about earlier. I might not be able to bounce any ideas back for you, but how about while we clean you tell me what it was you were planning. Jog your memory, or something.” Hunter smiled at her, going for large and sincere, “Can’t have Bobbi’s best girl feeling all down.” Jemma laughed, smiling at him and pushing on his shoulder.

“Her best girl? Did you learn that phrase from Captain Rogers?”

“Hey, that man is pretty popular with ladies if you haven’t noticed. He doesn’t even want any of them, and their just throwing themselves at him.”

“I find that rather decent of him, to not take advantage of his reputation like he could be.” Jemma lead Hunter over to a desk with beakers, needles, a Bunsen burner, and piles of paper and junk, “This desk is mine, but it looks like someone felt the right to overtake it for their… whatever this is supposed to be.” Hunter nodded, grabbing a stack of papers.

“Ok good, then let’s reclaim it. Where do these go?”

“Let me see, is there a name on it? Oh, him. His desk is over there, but before you walk away with them,” Jemma opened her drawer and grabbed out a sticky note, writing a small note about ‘minding your own space’ and sticking it to the top of the stack, “Put it somewhere that he’ll see it, please and thank you.”

“Yes ma’am.” When he came back, Jemma put trash into his arms, telling him that there was a trash can by the door. He came back to see that she had opened a filing cabinet and was carefully putting manilla folders away. He grabbed another stack of them, and brought them to her, holding them out one by one as she placed the previous ones.

The cleaning went on like this for a while. Hunter would pick something up and put it where Jemma told him to, she’d only take a break in explaining her idea to tell him where to out it or to note down which lab mate had left their space an utter disaster, and he would stop her when she got to flustered by telling her a joke. Eventually her desk and several other workstations had been cleaned and organized, and Hunter was leaning on Jemma’s desk. He watched her work, asked her questions, held vials, fetched beakers, and took every chance he got to flirt with her to make her blush and laugh.

Jemma stretched and yawned, looking at the clock and noting in surprise that it was one a.m., and Hunter was still there.

“Why didn’t you tell me it was getting so late, Hunter? You didn’t have to stay up with me for so long!”

“I’m enjoying myself,” She gave him a skeptical look, “What, I’m not allowed to enjoy myself?”

“You never enjoy stuff like this,” Jemma turned down the Bunsen burner as she spoke, “Well, I’m going to stop for a tea break, if you want to call it quits.”

“Tea break? You gunna start up again? It’s one a.m., Jem, why don’t we both call it quits for the night.”

“But I’m onto something right now.”

“Yeah, and you’ll get back onto it tomorrow morning," He looked at the clock blinking the late hour at them, "Or later in the morning. Let’s just go to bed.”

“Alright, fine.” Jemma started walking away from her desk, when Hunter grabbed her wrist.

“Hold up, you expect me to believe that you’re just going to leave your desk like this after how you got earlier about other people leaving the lab like it was? You’ll sneak back in here later, if I know you at all. Pack it up.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do know that, love. Pack it up.” Jemma have an annoyed sigh.

“Oh fine,” Jemma started clearing off her space, placing her notes in one of the drawers and the beakers into the fridge in the lab, “I’ll just pick it up later.”

“How much later?” Hunter looped his arm with hers, and started pulling her out of the lab, “Here’s how I’ll know that you’re actually going to sleep. I’m going to Bobbi’s room, my air conditioning is broken—I think Mack did something to it—and it’s too cold in there for human life. You come sleep in Bob’s room, too.”

“All three of us in a standard S.H.I.E.L.D. bed. Sounds roomy." She tried to pull her arm away from him, but he swung her around in a circle before moving down the hall towards the personal quarters. "Besides, we’ll wake Bobbi up!”

“What do you think we’ll be doing in her bed?” He leaned in close to whisper to her, “Not that I’d be opposed to doing anything with you, or you and Bobbi—Hey!” Jemma smacked his arm, laughing at him, “You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it before.”

“Oh yes I can.” They walked in silence for a few moments before Jemma let out a long suffering sigh, “Well now I _am_ thinking about it! You’re despicable, Lance Hunter.” Hunter laughed at her, “Another reason I can’t sleep in Bobbi’s room, I don’t have any nighties.”

“Wear something of Bobbi’s.”

“Now we’re taking her bed and her clothes. She’ll be delighted.”

“I know, right?” They laughed quietly as they approached Bobbi’s door, letting it open and moving in quietly. Hunter went over to Bobbi’s closet and pulled open a drawer, tossing a large shirt and a pair of workout shorts to Jemma.

“Why don’t I just run to my room? Just to grab my nighties!”

“And sneak off back to the lab, I don’t think so Jem. Just put those on,” Hunter whispered back to her and he started undoing his pants. Jemma watched him, her eyebrows practically touching her hairline.

“What are you going to sleep in?”

“My shirt and undies. Don’t worry, I only sleep commando when I’m alone.”

“That's a lie, I've walked into this room and gotten an eyefull of you in the past.” Jemma shot back, trying not to laugh loudly. Hunter was about to respond when a sleepy voice startled them.

“What’re you two doing?” Bobbi poked her head out from under her pillow, staring at them with bleary eyes.

“Coming to bed, what’s it look like. Go back to sleep, Bob.”

“Both of you at once? Am I dreaming?”

“No, it’s not like that Bobbi, Hunter is right you should go back to sleep. We didn’t mean to wake you up.” Jemma spoke lowly, despite Bobbi having already been woken up.

“Okay,” Bobbi yawned and rolled over so her back was to them, “Just don’t steal all my blankets.”

“Sure thing, mate.”

“Can do.” Jemma and Hunter crawled over Bobbi to get to the empty portion of her bed. Jemma snuggled in close to Bobbi, matching the curve of her back to curve of Bobbi’s stomach. Hunter laid down, face pressed into a pillow.

“Oh goody.”

“What?”

“I’m practically falling into the crevice over here.” Jemma rolled her eyes at Hunter, not caring that the action was lost in the dark.

“Just get over here, you big baby.” Jemma tugged him over towards her, letting Hunter bend one arm under her head, and the other reaching over both Bobbi and her. As they drifted off, Hunter’s head dropped forward onto Jemma’s chest and her arms wrapped around Hunter’s shoulders.

In morning, Bobbi’s alarm started going off. Reaching out to turn it off, she found her arm was trapped under something. Opening her eyes Bobbi stared at Jemma and Hunter, who had somehow wrapped themselves and her into a human knot.

“I’m definitely still dreaming.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm bad at this kind of thing, but I'm trying to imply that by the end of the fic Jemma and Hunter's relationship has changed. It's gone from "We're dating the same woman and are friends" to "Ok, this is awkward, but I might want you??? And Bobbi?????" I just really love Bobbi/Jemma, and I really like Bobbi/Hunter, but monogamy is for the weak? So they can share, and Bobbi is tall enough to be shared. That woman is a goddamn mountain. A beautiful pansexual mountain.


End file.
